Same old, same old. (They're "responding" [sic] to this defense of academic freedom.) The overlap with those involved in L'Affaire Tuvel is striking but not surprising. (Some signatories do surprise me, however.) Professor Stock replies here, with appropriate snark about what she aptly calls "the closed talking shop that is current academic feminist philosophy." (If so many of these analytic philosophers weren't so undereducated, they would recognize the echoes with the most absurd sectarian disputes among Marxist ideologues of the last century.) A couple of choice excerpts from Professor Stock's response:
There is diversity of viewpoints within feminist philosophy about sex and gender but, crucially, not about whether transwomen are literally members of the category women — this is now taken as axiomatic, and treated as immoral to question; and in fact, self-identification is now taken as the criterion of womanhood by most. What has happened, according to my reconstruction, is that in the past, feminists within the academy — indeed, at least one signatory to this very letter — have endorsed accounts which imply that (self-identifying) transwomen are not women, but not explicitly, as such. (Obvious exceptions include: Sheila Jeffreys; Janice Raymond. These people only ever get discussed in the sorts of shocked tones reserved for war criminals). In recent years, the Overton window has shifted, and it has became commonplace within academic feminist philosophy to take the fact that an account of womanhood is “exclusionary” of (self-identifying) trans women, either inadvertently or deliberately, as fatal to it. This is reflected in the two Stanford Encyclopedia posts cited in the APA post as supposed evidence of the rich diversity of feminist viewpoints....
So no, feminist philosophers [who signed the letter], I don’t think there are ‘significantly different philosophical views’ on the topic at issue in your ranks. I think that in your club, it’s now pro-self-ID or receive-the-open-letter; and very definitely, transwomen are women. And no, even you can’t escape accusations of transphobia, such is the bizarre, heavily moralised form of objection you’ve allowed to become part of the established repertoire in discussing these matters....
If you mean that we have to take transpeople’s accounts of “who they are” at face value, in every legal and social context, on pain of being horrible and exclusionary, why only them? Why not lesbians who understood themselves as exclusively female-attracted homosexuals, or women who understand themselves, necessarily and sufficiently, as adult human females? And do you mean the British Columbia beauty therapists should do this with regard to Yaniv, and just get on with waxing her female balls? Do you see a problem yet? If on the other hand you mean that transpeople should be respectfully left alone to get on with their lives, free from discrimination, harm, and fear, and to self-describe as they wish in most but not all contexts, then we agree. All of us. And have said so repeatedly. And mean it.
And here is Phillipe Lemoine, a PhD student in philosophy at Cornell currently in Paris:
I just saw your post on that ridiculous blog post on Daily Nous against "gender critical feminists". You may also want to check the open letter, signed by 33 professors of philosophy, published on the blog of the APA: https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/08/07/on-philosophical-scholarship-of-gender-a-response-to-12-leading-scholars/.
It's very short and contains this remarkable sentence: "There are many diverse, contentious views about gender and gender identity that can be–and are–engaged with in ways that do not call into question the integrity and sincerity of trans people nor the validity of their own understanding of who they are."
The authors insist that, despite what some people would have you believe (I guess they're talking about people who don't refuse to see what their eyes show them), there are no verboten views about sex and gender in philosophy. What some object to, we are supposed to believe, is the manner in which some people express their views.
But the passage I just quoted clearly shows that it's false. Suppose that you believe that, in fact, trans women are men. In that case, to the extent that trans women see themselves as women, there is simply no way you can argue for your position in a way that is consistent with the rule they state in that passage, since your view implies that trans women who think of themselves in that way are wrong.
One may also wonder if this principle is only supposed to apply to the debate about gender and sex or if it's supposed to regulate philosophical debates on every issue. If the latter, it would seem to imply that, for instance, a Marxist is not allowed to defend the position that workers are affected by false consciousness, since by definition this claim questions "the validity of their own understanding of who they are". If the former, then what principled reason is there to apply this rule to the debate about gender and sex, but not to other philosophical debates?
To be honest, I don't care much for either side of this debate. (My father is transgender and I think "gender critical feminists" often lack compassion, even if some of that is probably because they lash out in response to unfair criticism.) But I only see one side trying to make some views verboten in philosophy and this is where I draw the line. It's even worse when they deny that it's what they're trying to do.
Anyway, I hope you will address the obvious issues with this open letter, because someone has to. Feel free to quote me on anything I wrote above if you think it would be helpful.
I do think there have been failures of compassion by some Gender Critical feminists during this debate (although not by Kathleen Stock, who is so often a target of defamatory abuse), but I agree with Mr. Lemoine that only one side of this debate wants to violate the basic norms of academic freedom and philosophical discussion, and it is not the Gender Critical side but rather, to coin a phrase, "the Haslanger side."
And here again is philosopher Jason Brennan (Georgetown) (again, from Facebook, but he kindly gave permission to repost here):
"It's not OK to be GCF, and you should be harangued and ostracized for being one, because we anti-GCFs have decisively refuted their arguments." - A bunch of status-seeking people in philosophy.
1. As an outsider reading your stuff, no, not sure about that. I'm inclined to agree with your anti-GCF view, but your arguments are far from compelling or knock down. They have good objections to your views. You also tend to misrepresent their arguments to make it easier to argue against them.
2. Even if you're right that GCF has been decisively refuted, so what? I've decisively refuted all the existing arguments for limiting kidney markets. Restrictions on kidney markets literally kill hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, per year, which means such restrictions are far worse, in terms of harm, than whatever harm GCF supposedly does. But it would be absurd, I expect you agree, for me to then claim that Elizabeth Anderson, Michael Sandel, and other market restrictionists should be shut down and forbidden from publishing or speaking on these manners, or that they should be subjected to verbal abuse, or to claim that they are really just activists.
3. As a more extreme example, consider immigration restrictions. On a *conservative* estimate, the harm done by such restrictions equals, on net, at least $50 trillion a year, with the harms disproportionately suffered by the extremely poor. The harm of such restrictions is many orders of magnitude worse than the harm done to transgender people around the world. As far as I can tell, Bas, Mike Huemer, Caplan, and I have decisively refuted all but maybe one objection to open borders, including all the arguments philosophers make. (There's maybe one economic argument left.) Nevertheless, it would be absurd, I expect you agree, for me to claim that David Miller, Gillian Brock, or other restrictionists should be shut down, forbidden from publishing or speaking, or subject to verbal abuse, or to claim that they are really just activists.
Professor Brennan posted a version of this critique here, where he added the following amusing admonition about comments (which is basically Weinberg's comment policy): "Please be civil to anyone on my side, but you are permitted to be nasty to people who disagree, since by hypothesis they advocate immoral and unjust positions for bad reasons."
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